The Gun Flashcards
1
Q
The intoxication of power
A
- “The Gun” is a poem about the intoxicating nature of power. When the speaker’s partner brings home a gun, she at first sees it as a threat. Ultimately, however, the speaker doesn’t just get used to the gun, but enjoys watching her husband disembowel the animals he kills with it (and then enjoys cooking those animals when he’s done). The gun gives the couple domination over their surroundings, and even over life itself. Such power, the poem implies, can prove irresistible, even for those initially hesitant to embrace it.
- Power here is something enticing and intoxicating. And the fact that the speaker was initially skeptical of the gun only emphasizes how alluring—and perhaps even addictive—this power can feel, since by the end of the poem the speaker unabashedly enjoys the spoils of the partner’s hunting.
- Though the poem doesn’t explicitly present this power-lust as a good or a bad thing, the imagery of the speaker “slicing, stirring and tasting” the dead animals is uneasily visceral. Her newfound enjoyment of power, it seems, has done away with her aversion to death and violence.
2
Q
Bringing a gun …
… itself:
A
- Simply “bringing a gun into a house,” this poem’s speaker begins, “changes” the entire atmosphere. That’s because guns have power. Everyone knows that a gun has the potential to injure and kill. So when the speaker’s husband brings a gun into the house and lays it out on the kitchen table “like something dead,” its mere presence feels threatening.
- That threat feels all the more acute because kitchens are typically seen as safe, inviting places. The gun’s raw, frightening power forms a sharp juxtaposition with the kitchen’s domestic calm. And when the speaker compares the gun itself to a dead animal, her simile suggests that the gun isn’t just a scary weapon, but a symbol of death itself.
- It’s also startling that the speaker’s partner chooses to put the gun on the kitchen table. After all, this isn’t a very discreet or safe spot to put down a gun. The fact that the partner lays it out in the open feels confrontational or provocative. It’s as if he’s proud of the gun and doesn’t mind that its presence unsettles the speaker. Maybe he’s even enjoying the power the gun gives him to make her uncomfortable. This, in turn, hints at the complicated power dynamics that guns often bring up, proving the speaker’s point that “bringing a gun into a house / changes it.”
3
Q
the grainy polished …
… the green-checked cloth.
A
- As the speaker observes the gun lying threateningly on the table, her visual imagery becomes detailed and vivid. She notices the “grainy polished wood stock” and the “long metal barrel”—descriptions that present it as a solid, heavy, serious piece of craftsmanship. The “grey shadow” it casts on the cheery “green-checked” tablecloth darkens the kitchen’s cozy, welcoming atmosphere—another sharp juxtaposition between the gun’s primal violence and the kitchen’s domestic coziness. All of these detailed observations suggest that the speaker feels wary—but maybe also fascinated, against her will.
- The enjambments here also suggest that the speaker feels not just frightened, but fascinated. Lines 7 and 8 both flow seamlessly toward the end-stop in line 9/
This continuous flow makes it feel as if the language is building up to something. With the gun in the kitchen, something dangerous or frightening might happen any minute—and the speaker can’t tear her eyes away.
4
Q
At first it’s …
… through the head.
A
- The gun’s mere presence has already changed the atmosphere of the speaker’s home. Now, though, her partner begins to actually use the gun.
- Instead of immediately going out hunting, the partner starts with target “practice,” shooting at tin cans hanging from the trees in the garden. While the gun at first seemed like a frightening, ominous object, for a moment it doesn’t seem all that menacing anymore. After all, there’s nothing terribly scary about practicing marksmanship as a sport: those “perforat[ed]” tin cans can’t bleed or scream. The tone here at first feels a lot calmer and milder; there’s even something almost cozy about the partner taking pot-shots at the recycling.
- However, the partner swiftly goes from shooting inanimate objects to shooting a rabbit “clean through the head.” This unsentimental phrasing suggests that the partner goes from zero to sixty, immediately seeing killing as a matter of course: that “clean” shot overlooks the gruesome, bloody reality of the rabbit’s bullet wound. But the speaker doesn’t seem particularly unsettled by either her husband’s new hobby or the rabbit’s corpse: she simply notes this new development without further comment.
- The speaker’s calm, matter-of-fact reaction suggests that it’s pretty easy to get swept up in a gun’s alluring power. This speaker—originally so wary of the gun—can already watch her partner shoot a rabbit “clean through the head” without even showing any emotion.
5
Q
Soon the fridge …
… fur and feathers.
A
- After shooting his first rabbit, the partner plunges bloodthirstily into the world of hunting, and the couple’s fridge “fills with creatures / that have run and flown.” Imagining all the carcasses in the fridge as “creatures” that once moved (and tried to escape!), the speaker acknowledges that the things in her fridge were once living beings—not just hunks of meat.
- But she doesn’t seem at all upset by this thought. Instead, she passively observes her partner, noting that his hands “reek of gun oil” and “entrails” (that is, guts). This evocative smell imagery makes the partner seem ruthless and primal. “Trampl[ing] / fur and feathers” as he guts his prey, he’s become a powerful, merciless force that stomps on nature without a second thought. And the speaker’s tone suggests that she doesn’t altogether disapprove! She was right all along that the gun would change her home, but she doesn’t seem to dislike that change nearly as much as she expected to.
6
Q
There’s a spring …
… stirring and tasting—
A
- As the speaker describes the effect hunting has had on her partner, the poem’s tone begins to change.
- The gun, it seems, has given the speaker’s partner a whole new lease on life. He’s lively and energetic, and his eyes “gleam / like when sex was fresh.” This simile suggests that there’s something more than a little erotic about the power the partner has found in the gun. It also implies that sex had become a little less “fresh” for this couple. But the gun’s intoxicating power seems to have brought their libidos roaring back to life. The “spring” in the partner’s step isn’t just a bounce: there’s also a pun on the season here. It’s as if the partner, the speaker, their marriage, and their home are all enjoying a fresh infusion of new life—all brought about by their daily involvement with death.
- Although the speaker was originally frightened of the gun’s violent power, now she actively appreciates the way it has breathed life into her house—an ironic thing, considering that this new sense of life and vitality came from killing other living creatures.
7
Q
excited as if …
… sprouting golden crocuses.
A
- In the poem’s last five lines, the speaker introduces an intense, mythic simile: cooking the dead animals makes her feel so excited that it’s “as if the King of Death / had arrived to feast.” In other words, she feels like she’s cooking for the personified figure of Death itself.
- The King of Death emerges from “winters woods,” calling up imagery of a cold, bleak forest. He also seems pretty scary—he has a “black mouth,” wide open like a grave. And yet, “golden crocuses” (a kind of bright spring flower) grow out of that “black mouth.”
- This juxtaposition of death and life encapsulates exactly what the speaker and her partner have discovered: bringing death into the house also means bringing life into the house. Death and life are intimately connected, and the gun has helped them to feel that deep and frightening truth. Killing and eating animals, the couple feel more deeply aware of their own aliveness.
- Of course, the gun still symbolizes violent power and the threat of death, and its power is still intoxicating and dangerous. But the speaker isn’t frightened of it anymore. Instead, she’s ready to welcome the King of Death to dinner—and with him, all the vibrant new life that puts a literal and figurative “spring” in her partner’s step.
8
Q
The Gun
A
- The entire poem is structured around the idea that guns symbolize power—and more specifically, the power to deal out death. If the speaker is slow to warm up to the gun, perhaps it’s because she’s not totally comfortable with that kind of power.
- But once she’s used to the gun, she starts to enjoy the intoxicating power it represents. Her cozy, domestic home feels more “alive” with the gun around: being this close to its potent energy completely changes the way she looks at her surroundings. The world even becomes mythic to her, stalked by the “King of Death” himself. Life, the poem’s gun symbolism suggests, feels more real and more vibrant when death’s power is nearby.
9
Q
Form
A
- “The Gun” is a 30-line poem broken up into six stanzas of different lengths. Written in free verse, it has a loose, unstructured feel, and its shape evolves along with the speaker’s thoughts.
- For instance, the two-line first stanza makes a bold opening statement: “Bringing a gun into a house / changes it.” Right away, it’s clear that the rest of the poem will illustrate how, exactly, a gun changes a house.
- And this is exactly what happens. Each of the following stanzas illustrates a different way that the gun alters the speaker’s house and, eventually, her life. Because the speaker isn’t tied to a rigid poetic form, these stanzas can change shape to fit the shape of her thoughts, ranging from seven-line stanzas of vivid description to a one-line stanza that makes a bold, punchy statement: “A gun brings a house alive.”
- This poem’s fresh, engaging, free-flowing form thus evokes the speaker’s mood as she begins to enjoy the gun’s power, letting her fit her language to her thoughts and feelings
10
Q
Rhyme scheme
A
“The Gun” doesn’t follow a rhyme scheme, and the lack of rhyme gives the poem an unconstrained, conversational sound. But there’s still plenty of strong poetic flavor here: the speaker’s language sounds far from everyday. The poem’s musicality and intensity come not from rhyme, but from internal patterns of sound (like assonance and consonance) and vivid imagery.
